“Maybe not, sir; but I am speaking of what I know for certain. But let us not go back on these things.”
“What are they? Speak out, boy,” cried he, more eagerly.
“I see you are not aware of what I thought you knew. You do not seem to know that May's affections are engaged,—that she has given her heart to that young college man who was here long ago as Agincourt's tutor. They have corresponded.”
“Corresponded!”
“Yes, I know it all, and she will not deny it,—nor need she, from all I can learn. He is a fine-hearted fellow, worthy of any girl's love. Agincourt has told me some noble traits of him, and he deserves all his good fortune.”
“But to think that she should have contracted this engagement without consulting me,—that she should have written to him—”
“I don't see how you can reproach her, a poor motherless girl. How could she go to you with her heart full of sorrows and anxieties? She was making no worldly compact in which she needed your knowledge of life to guide her.”
“It was treachery to us all!” cried the old man, bitterly, for now he saw to what he owed his son's desertion of him.
“It was none to me; so much I will say, father. A stupid compact would have bound her to her unhappiness, and this she had the courage to resist.”
“And it is for this I am to be forsaken in my old age!” exclaimed he, in an accent of deep anguish. “I can never forgive her,—never!”